The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-08-24
genius for adapting his knowledge to prac-

genius for adapting his knowledge to prac-
tical purposes.
II can teach him nothing; he teaches
me, said the professor once to the writer.
This was not true. To Barker, Edison
appealed always when in doubt, and no
scientitic mamcriSms did either assume.
In shirt sleeves Edison, with quid of fine
cut bUlgiut: his checks, and Barker, his face
Slneared with chemicals and his fingers of
Hislnatic hueS from contact with acids and
alkaioids, these two men OF science would
spend the hours at night till dawn came,
talking III very colloquial and emphatic
English. Sometimes they spent the night
in Edison's wonderful workshop at Menlo
Park, and sometimes at the professors labo-
ratory in Philadelphia.
Upon one thing they disagreed abso-
lutely: Edison liked pie; Barker abhorred
1t. And when Edison began his midnight
lunch on mince pie the professor used to
turn his back upon him, thereby to express
his distress
For the pedantry and the highly impress
slve mannerism of some alleged scientists
both men had the profoundest contempt;
and while Edison would express himself
with laugh at the efforts of some of them
to boost themselves into notoriety ON his
shoulders, Barker would splutter away and
tear at his buShy and gorgeous side whiskerS
with such impatience that he seemed likely
III his indignation to pull them out.
Both men have precisely the same passion
for dress, and that was none at all, and if
Barker's SLOUGH felt hat had a little the
most rakish tilt to it, Edison's had the
broadest brim.
In the summer of 1870 Prof. Barker was
invited by the Wallace Brothers of Ansonia.
Conn, to visit their mandatory and wit
ness large dynamo when put in operation.
The machine was to be set running on Sun
day. Barker asked if he could invite his
friend Edison to come with him and the
Messrs. Wallace were delighted to have the
famous genius with them. At that time
Edison was known only as an expert cleo
trician, and though his stock exchange
ticker his telephone, and one or two other
inventions of that nature had given him a
great and, to him, valuable reputation with
capitalists, it was with the monograph,
which was merely curious toy, that he
gained his remarkable popular reputation.
The electric light at that time was some
thing that he had thought about, and he
had determined to turn his attention to it
at some future time.
damned into one of the little corner. seats
of the railroad car, a seat designed for
but one, Edison and Prof. Barker started
for their visit And there the writer found
them. Edison wore little half cotton sack
coat, and Barker a black alpaca SLOUGH
hats half hid the faces of each of them.
Edison declared that Barker with his white
chOker for the professor always wears a
white tie looked like a minister going to
preach over Sunday.
but he amt" says Edison, "are you,
professor? Some folks would say you were
going to break it,"
Then Prof Barker, casting his eyes on
Edison's unblacl1ed boots, remarked that no
one would make the mistake of supposing
that Edison was going to church.
Though, perhaps, a good many think
such experience would be good for him" he
adds
Thus testing as merry as school boys on a
lark, these scientists made their trip, and
they were going where Edison set his first
valuable hints about the divisibility of the
electrical current, and where Barker was
to stand with the scientists ecstacy and
watch the mastery of men over the ele-
mentS.
/ All of that Sunday Edison was very
grave. He stood watching the revolutions
of the great wheel, sometimes speaking not
a word for hours, and Mr.. Wallace after
ward said that Edison's face was a more re-
markable thing for him to look at than the
machine.
At dark Edison simply said to the profess
sor that he had that day, he believed, OBJ
tanned the suggestion that would develop
the perfect electric light. He said but a
few words Barker understood. He said
afterward that he knew the remarkable
man was on the eve of another invention
which would be more striking than the tele-
phone or ticker, or quadruplex.
Edison set about the work at once of de
veloping the electric light, and giving up all
other business except that which his con.
tracts required him TO do, he figured out
that in five years time he would develop
the perfect and Invisible electric light h
did it in three. He could have done it in
one, perhaps less, had he found the perfect
carbon point.
The Edison electric light was invented on
that Sunday in America.
But it was while he was at work upon this
that the idea came to Edison, which he be
lieves will be, when developed, the greatest
of all his achievements, and one which will
revolutionize the manufacture and the use
of power throughout the world.
This was the cheap and sure development
of the latent heat, energy and force that lie
in coal The idea than he has expressed
crudely and briefly is that electrical energy
can be produced directly from coal, without
the costly intermediary agencies now en-
ployed, and that when this is done steam as
motive power will be superseded by a
safer, surer and cheaper power.
In all his investigations, and he has been
giving every moment he could spare to
making them, Prof. Barker has been his
friend The paper which the professor read
on Monday is a description of the first step
toward success. Already he has made a
machine which converts heat into cleo
tricity by means of magnetism, and that
means the conversion of heat into power
without intermediary agents
1t is marvellous discovery Prof Barker
and the other scientists believe, beside
which the capture Of vaporized water by
W ats and the utilizing of it as power will
pale.
11rr1 COME TO NIHITE RRETuRHM